


A Little Help from Our Friends

by autisticblueteam



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Autistic Character, Autistic Character(s), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 17:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8676937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autisticblueteam/pseuds/autisticblueteam
Summary: When you’ve been through so much together, you can’t help but develop a certain level of friendship. Sometimes that friendship means you protect each other on the battlefield, or from things that trigger episodes, and other such things. Sometimes it means you patch up each other’s injuries when the resident Doctor terrifies you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to write somethng like this for a few reasons, so I grabbed an offhand joke I made in a post and made it into a fic.
> 
> (some heavily implied Kimballina at the start)

When the alert popped up in the corner of her HUD, she was in the middle of sparring with Kimball.

Specifically, she was in the middle of teaching Kimball proper stance and proper blocking. Which involved her standing behind her, chest pressed to her back as she manoeuvred her into the proper positions and walked her through the moves. Something that, even through their armour, was rather intimate. So she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a little annoyed when the alert pinged in her ears, forcing her to apologise to Kimball and step back to check it.

She got a little less annoyed when she saw the message from Wash, simply reading: ‘ _Need help. Come to my bunk._ ’

“Sorry, Kimball, I’m going to have to cut this short,” She said, internally running through all of the things Wash could have somehow done. Everything from an Epsilon incident−she had him shut down, just in case−to him simply needing help with some work and just, in all his social wisdom, being needlessly vague.

“That’s alright. I trust I’ll see you later?” Kimball said, pulling off her helmet and tucking it under her arm. She had that knowing little smile on her face that Carolina had come to know well, and that made her smirk involuntarily. Trying her best to hide this fact from her voice, but no doubt failing, she assured Kimball that she _definitely_ would before leaving and making a beeline for Wash’s bunk.

By the time she reached his door she’d run through most of the possibilities for Wash’s latest incident in her head. Epsilon was still dormant, resting heavy on the back of her mind but inactive as she’d told him to be. So as soon as she arrived she rapped her knuckles loudly against the metal, which was quickly followed by a call of ‘it’s open!’ and her stepping inside−

−only to me immediately greeted by the sight of Wash, holding a cloth to his head which was very obviously, and rather heavily, _bleeding_.

With her helmet off, Wash recognised the look that she gave him immediately.

“Don’t give me that look, Carolina. It’s not a big deal, the amount of blood that comes from head wounds is usually very− _aah_ −misleading,” He said very matter-of-factly, wincing as he pressed the cloth firmer against his head, “Though I am a little dizzy.”

“What did you _do_?” Carolina walked over to him, coaxing his hand away from his head to get a look at the wound. It was situated just above his implant site, not a massively deep incision but deep enough to cause more than a little bleeding and no doubt rough enough to give Wash yet another concussion.

“I didn’t _do_ anything!” Wash said, his voice raising an octave, “Accidents happen!”

For that, he just got another look. And he sighed.

“Palomo pissed off another federal soldier, you know the drill. The kid keeps nearly getting himself killed. I just so happened to just− you know− step in the way this time. Turns out that Fed kid is pretty strong,” He said. He winced a little as he pressed the cloth back to the wound, thumping his free fist against his leg a few times. Damn, that stung.

Carolina raised a brow, but didn’t comment. It was far from the weirdest story Wash had behind an injury, and really it was rather in character so she didn’t see the need. She did, however, see the need to make him move that damn cloth again so she could get a better look.

“Gun grip?”

Wash nodded. Winced again.

“Well, it doesn’t look too serious, but you should still get it−” She saw Wash’s eyes widen a little, and his head shake, and trailed off, “−checked… out… Wash, what does that mean? Why haven’t you gone to Grey? Did you call _me_ to help you with this?”

“I don’t want to go to Grey,” Wash’s fist thumped a little harder against his leg, “Not for this.”

Carolina frowned, “I don’t understand, why−”

“−Friends don’t let friends get their head wound treated by the doctor who _probably_ wants to dissect their neural implant, Carolina,” Wash said all at once, cutting her off. When Carolina just stared at him, he sighed and flinched, looking away, “She’s… She made an offhand comment, back when we first got to the Federal base. About my neural implant. It was a little… _invasive_ , feeling, y’know? And I don’t think I’m comfortable with her messing around back there again.”

“I see,” Carolina said, sighing softly and setting her helmet down on the bed. Wash glanced back at her out of the corner of his eye, head still turned away, as she stripped off her gloves, “Got a med kit?”

The tension in Wash’s body fell away. He reached around to his other side and grabbed the small med kit from the bed beside him, handing it to Carolina. She gestured for him to turn to the side and knelt down behind him−not daring to sit on the bed in full armour−and opened the kit.

“What did she say? If you don’t mind me asking,” She said, soaking something in saline and starting to clean up the wound. She hesitated a little when she saw the blood that had dripped down over his implant site, stained the circuitry like scars around and running down his shoulder blades and back. Her hand hovered awkwardly, pressing the cloth to the spot right above his implant.

“She called it ‘pretty little wires and chips’,” Wash sighed. Carolina watched him reach over to the bedside table, grab his chew and stick it in his mouth, “You can touch the scars. Just… be careful.”

Being gentle, just barely brushing the cloth against his skin, she started started to clean up the rest of the blood.

“I think she’s… a little intrigued, by it, in the way Grey gets intrigued by things. And it’s not that I think she means any harm, but… You know,” He shrugged dismissively, bit a little harder on his chew.

“I know,” Carolina said, putting the bloody cloth down and grabbing a new cloth to dab it dry, “Hey, Wash?”

Wash turned his head a little, “Yeah?”

“We need to work on how you write messages,” She continued, a smile in her voice. Wash chuckled a little, hand reflexively going to scratch the back of his head. Only Carolina’s quick reflexes stopped him, “Just ‘need help’ is _rather_ vague.”

“In my defence, I had been hit in the head less than five minutes earlier,” Wash said, holding up his hands. Carolina shook her head, despite the smile still on her face; she turned back to the med kit, pulling out a gauze pad and some tape, “Also, that’s kinda rich coming from the woman who once messaged the team with just ‘Get over here’, without even telling us where.”

“You all made it just fine,” Carolina said, unable to hide the slight hint of smugness in her tone. She taped the wound closed as best she could−it wasn’t really serious enough to need stitches and it wasn’t as if she had any of those materials on hand anyway−and then taped the bandage down over it. She tapped his shoulder, and he turned back to her, “But that’s beside the point. For all the information that message gave me, you could have been in the middle of an episode, Wash.”

“Ah, right,” Wash chuckled awkwardly. He raised his hand to touch the bandage on the back of his head, wincing a little, “I didn’t think about that. Is he−?”

“He’s shut down,” Carolina said, “Not that he was happy that he had to, as per usual.”

Teeth dug harder into the silicone of his chew, “Right. Sorry, about that. I should be taking responsibility for it, not expecting you to have him shut down all the time. It’s not fair to−”

“Wash? Shut up.”

When Wash looked at her, Carolina struggled not to laugh at the wide-eyed look on his face. Settling her hand on her hip, she set him with a look.

“Epsilon can handle having to go quiet every now and again. He just likes to complain. However _you_ can’t handle Epsilon. And that’s _fine_ ,” She said, in a voice somewhere between her commander tone and an attempt at reassurance, “I can tell Epsilon to shut down, just like I can patch up your head wound because you don’t want Grey back there. Just like you do certain things for my sake.”

“But−”

Now the commander voice came full force, “No buts, Agent Washington. It’s _fine_. Now, am I going to have to order you to stay here and rest or are you just going to do it?”

“I still have lieutenants to train, Carolina. I can handle that with a concussion,” Wash said, standing up to grab his armour−

−only to stumble, forcing Carolina to catch him. And give him a look.

“Stay here. I’ll send Caboose up,” She said, settling him back on the bed, “If I see you anywhere but the mess hall before tomorrow, at least, I will drag you back.”

“Yes boss,” He made a mock salute, earning himself a light punch in the arm. Chuckling he returned the gesture, then gave a slight smile, “And… thanks. For helping.”

Carolina shrugged a little, “You’d do the same.”

With that she reached over to ruffle his hair. And Wash laughed, scrunching up his face and shoving her hand away.

Yeah, yeah he would.


End file.
